


Midwifery

by RunRabbitRun



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Babies, Family, Gen, Kid Fic, PTSD, Parenthood, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 03:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/617695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunRabbitRun/pseuds/RunRabbitRun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For now Dís needed Thorin to help her manage her household, his people needed him to further stabilize their settlements and keep the relations between Durin’s folk and the other Dwarf clans peaceful and productive, and the boys needed a father-uncle to teach them to be men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midwifery

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I don't know why I can't stop writing about the Durin Family...

Fíli was born, as all dwarf babes are, squalling and wriggling. Seldom was there a silent birth among their people, and such a thing was seen as an ill omen. Dwarves come into the world screaming a battle-cry, and they go out the same way. Dís hunched over on the birthing bricks, her husband supporting her from behind and her brother hovering anxiously in the corner of the room. Hilde, the attending midwife, knelt on the floor, ready to catch...

And out he came, the newest child of the line of Durin. Dís gasped hard and sagged against Honir. 

"What is it?" She demanded, still gripping Honir’s arms hard enough to bruise. 

"Boy!" Hilde cried. "A big, strong boy!"

Dís, sweating and puffing, smiled brilliantly and Honir whooped for joy. Thorin spared a quick glare for his loud brother-in-law but his ire went unnoticed. Dís and Honir were far too busy kissing rapturously to notice grumpy Thorin. 

While the assistant midwife dealt with the afterbirth and Hilde checked the child over for abnormalities, Thorin brushed a lock of Dís's dark hair away from her face and gave her a real smile.

"Congratulations, my sister," he said. Dís squeezed his hand.

"Hair of gold!" Hilde proclaimed as she gently wiped the child clean with a wet cloth. "Gold hair is a good sign. Prosperity and wealth, that's what gold means."

"Just like his papa," Dís said, smiling. She pulled Honir's face to hers and kissed him hard. Thorin mentally rolled his eyes but shook Honir's hand like a good in-law. Dís laughed at them, knowing full well her husband and her brother did not get on very well; Honir thought Thorin was a brooding stick-in-the-mud while Thorin thought Honir was boorish and not nearly learned enough for the likes of his sister. But on that joyous day both dwarves were willing to put aside their old enmity.

Washed and swaddled, Fíli was a robust child, and his abundant gold hair stuck straight out from his head like a halo. 

When it was his turn to hold the new baby, Thorin took Fíli very gingerly from Hilde's arms. He gratefully accepted her help as she gently made adjustments to the position of his hands.

"Use this arm to hold his body, there you go, and tilt your elbow like this to support his head, babies don't have strong necks. Good, just like that."

Thorin and Hilde smiled at each other. Thorin rather liked industrious, serious Hilde. He might have wooed her once, despite her lower birth, before the Troubles began. But that was long ago, and she was more interested in the craft of midwifery than marriage… and when he really thought about it, Thorin knew he much preferred his solitude to childrearing and husbanding. 

But looking at Fíli, all plump and sweet in his woolen blankets, with the lovely Hilde at his side, Thorin almost changed his mind about the domestic life. Fíli was not his son, but unless Thorin produced a child of his own, his nephew was his sole heir. He was a prince of the House of Durin, such as it was. Like a flash, Thorin had a sudden vision: Fíli's birth in not in the humble house of Honir, but in the royal chambers of Erebor, where he would be wrapped in blankets of silk velvet, not knitted wool, and where a great feast would be held to honor the birth of a new prince. 

But the vision soon faded, and Thorin was once again standing in his sister's bedroom in Ered Luin. Fíli wriggled in his blankets, a tiny hand freeing itself to wrap around Thorin's finger. Fíli squinted up at his uncle and snuffled. 

"Hello, little prince," Thorin murmured. "I imagine you're too little to hold a sword, but I'll settle for spoiling you until your Mama deems you old enough to learn to be a warrior. Just like your Grandfather and Great-Grandfather."

 

Five years passed. Life grew ever more stable and prosperous in Ered Luin. Thorin toyed with courting Hilde but he found himself too busy (and Hilde too disinterested) to wed. Fíli remained his sole heir until one day in summer, when Dís stood up tall in the middle of a feast and announced that she was expecting.

In the end, it was a good thing that Thorin never took a wife or had children. Not five months into Dís's pregnancy, Honir was killed in a tunnel collapse. Dís needed her brother, and Thorin was free to support her and her children.

And when Dís and poor, dead Honir's second child came due, it was Thorin who held Dís up while she labored on the bricks. 

And then there was Kíli. 

"Black hair this time," Hilde said as she laid a newly bathed and wrapped Kíli in Dís's arms. "Black for nobility."

“Black for the House of Durin,” Dís said quietly. Thorin pressed a gentle kiss to the boy’s head. 

While Thorin had mourned Honir for his sister's sake, he never thought he'd actually miss the idiot. But in those first few weeks of Kíli's life, he wished more than once that the bugger was there to help with the baby. Fíli, Dís and Thorin quickly realized, had been an easy baby. He'd slept a lot and cried only when he was wet. He ate heartily and learned to smile and laugh early. Kíli, on the other hand, seemed determined to monopolize everyone's time for good or ill. He cried often, and shrieked if no one was holding him. He slept only in short bursts. He was colicky. The list went on and on.

"My baby, my baby," Thorin heard Dís exhaustedly sing-songing one night when Kíli refused to sleep. "I know it isn't fair, I wish you could have been born into joy, not mourning. I wish-" she choked on a sob "I wish your Da was here."

Rubbing his tired eyes, Thorin levered himself out of bed. In his nightclothes, not bothering with a robe or shoes, he crossed the hall into Dís's bedroom to find his sister pacing back and forth, gently rocking a fussy Kíli. She acknowledged Thorin with a small nod and then went back to softly singing to her son. Her face was blotchy and wet from tears, which made Thorin want to hit something hard. The wall, perhaps. Or perhaps the very Valar themselves, for allowing such misery to come upon Dís, upon him, upon all of his people...

Realizing he was getting carried away, Thorin took a deep breath and gently stopped Dís in her pacing. 

"That's enough for one night, sister. Give him here," he said. Dís frowned at him.

"Thorin, I don't need coddling," she said imperiously. 

"No, you don't," Thorin agreed. "But you do need a good night's sleep every once in awhile. Let me take him.” For a moment Dís looked as though she might refuse, but then she handed over the swaddled child. 

"I think it’s his colic. He's not wet, and he nursed well before dinner," she said, fussing with Kíli's blankets. "I just don't know."

"Let me worry about it," Thorin said. Dís snorted.

“Enjoy yourself,” she said, and shooed Thorin from her room.

Thorin had the smallest bedroom, which had never actually been intended as a bedroom when the house was built. When Honir had been alive, it had been his workshop, and the place still smelled a little of coal and metal shavings still lurked in the corners. There was just enough room for Thorin’s narrow bed, his chest, and his weapon stand. The rest of his belongings were scattered about his sister’s house like flotsam. 

Kíli fussed until Thorin laid the babe out on his lap and rubbed his round belly. Kíli, ever demanding, had also gotten a hold of Thorin’s left forefinger and gummed it industriously. Thorin sat on his bed for what could have been an hour or five minutes. He did this often, his hands skillfully attending a task while his eyes stared and his mind wandered. He thought of Erebor mostly, though on darker days his mind strayed to Moria. 

In Erebor, he thought, Dís would have a nursemaid on hand for times like these. She would not have to suffer the hardships of motherhood with no one but her overworked, war-shocked brother to help her. She also would not have married Honir, who was western born and bred.

“I suppose I have to thank your Papa for that, at least,” Thorin said to Kíli, who blinked up at him with his enormous dark eyes. “Your Mama could have wed any number of noble dwarves or warriors in Erebor, but then she could not have had you or your brother.”

At the mention of Fíli, there came a small, timid knock on Thorin’s door. Thorin sighed fondly.

“Come in.”

The door opened and a head of long blond curls peeked around it. 

“Bad dream?” Thorin asked. When he was much younger, Fíli was subject to night terrors that would leave him screaming and unable to tell dreams from the waking world. They had faded was he grew but the boy was still prone to nightmares.

“No.” He looked a little nervous. “Uncle, is something happening? I heard you and Mama talking,” Fíli said, sleepiness still clinging to his voice. Thorin motioned for the boy to come closer and Fíli happily obeyed, climbing up onto the bed to sit curled next to Thorin. Kíli wriggled and made a delighted squealing noise at the sight of his brother. 

“Baby’s not sleepy?” Fíli asked, petting Kíli’s dark hair.

“Kíli is having trouble tonight, that’s all,” Thorin said. 

Fíli tugged on the sleeve of his nightshirt.

“I wanna hold baby,” he said pleadingly. “Can I?”

“You must be very, very careful,” Thorin said. He arranged Fíli’s arms into a cradle, and then gently placed Kíli within it. Kíli cooed and stuck his fingers in his mouth. Fíli giggled.

“Brother likes me,” Fíli said proudly.

“Aye, he does,” Thorin said. His mind strayed unbidden to Moria, to thoughts of Frerin, poor slain Frerin… 

“Was I this little?” Fíli asked, interrupting Thorin’s darkening thoughts.

“No, you were bigger than this when you were Kíli’s age.”

“’Cause I’m older!” Fíli chirped, as if that explained everything. 

“Uhm, not quite. You were Kíli’s age once, which means… Nevermind. You were simply a larger child. It happens that way sometimes.”

“I’m older, which means I’ll always be bigger,” Fíli said, tickling Kíli’s belly. The baby laughed and grabbed at Fíli’s hair. Dís refused to cut Fíli’s golden hair, and so it hung longer than what was usual for a child his age. The half-undone braids dangled and tickled Kíli’s round cheeks. 

“I wouldn’t count on it, nephew. Your mother may be some years younger, but she spent many years taller than I. I had to catch up in my thirties, when she finally stopped growing.”

“We can stop growing?” Fíli whispered, horrified. Thorin chuckled.

“Perhaps you are a little young to be told all the mysteries of pubescence.” When Fíli frowned in confusion, he clarified, “Once you reach your full height, you stop growing. You needn’t worry; we who are of Durin’s line are typically taller than most others. Girls grow very fast and reach their height earlier than boys, so you may have to suffer being shorter than your little girl-friends for at least a little while.”

“Girls are nasty,” Fíli said, sticking out his tongue. Kíli gurgled, seemingly in agreement. 

“So you say now,” Thorin said. Fíli rocked Kíli for a while in silence.

“Uncle,” said finally, his voice growing low and his words slow with sleepiness, “Is Kíli a prince too? Mama said that you are a prince, and I’m a prince ‘cause you’re a prince, so is Kíli a prince?”

“Yes. Our family is descended from King Durin, so any child of mine or of your mother’s is royalty. But remember, Fíli, that mindfulness is the better part of high birth.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Don’t get cocky,” Thorin said. 

“Oh. Awright, I guess,” Fíli said, sounding mildly disappointed. 

“Go to sleep, nephew,” Thorin said, taking Kíli in his arms and helping Fíli settle into blankets. Fíli fell asleep immediately, in that miraculous way very young children can. Kíli fussed until Thorin placed him next to Fíli. He snuggled in and, like his brother, finally closed his eyes. In the half-light, Fíli’s features bore a strong resemblance to his lost father, and Thorin felt an altogether unexpected ache in his heart. Kíli, on the other hand, resembled Dís so much it was though Thorin’s own sister had been transformed into a child once more. Thorin stroked Kíli’s black hair, which was still soft as lambswool. Two fine sons born to the royal house of Durin in only five years, even after all their hardships. It was certainly auspicious…

This can’t last, Thorin thought suddenly. Life was too unkind, the line of Durin too unlucky. First the dragon, then Moria and the death of Thrór, the disappearance of Thráin, and the long years spent wandering from Mannish town to wild outpost. Fíli had gotten a taste of it already in the death of Honir. Kíli yet remained relatively untouched; he would never know his father, but he would never have to bear the pain of his loss either. The shadow would lie lightly on Dís’s sons, but for how long?

Fíli snuffled in his sleep and woke with a start. He blinked his eyes rapidly before focusing on his Uncle. 

“Alright?” Thorin asked, pulling the blankets a little higher up Fíli’s shoulders.

“Uh huh,” Fíli said. He yawned and resettled, falling asleep again with minutes. Kíli grunted and curled a chubby hand into Fíli’s nightshirt.

They really were good boys…

This was good enough, Thorin thought firmly. For now, it would have to do. For now Dís needed him to help her manage her household, his people needed him to further stabilize their settlements and keep the relations between Durin’s folk and the other Dwarf clans peaceful and productive, and the boys needed a father-uncle to teach them to be men. Thorin’s fierce desire to reclaim Erebor could wait. It would have to.


End file.
